One of the drawbacks of setting down a comedy in narrative form is the necessary curtailing of all descriptive passages and explanatory ethical disquisitions: in such a frame, pen and ink pictures of scenery, and the rendering of atmosphere, are out of place.
Let it therefore be borne in mind that, in this Butterfly Drama, with the exception of the penultimate scene enacted at the Inn in Devizes, the scenery is altogether cast in or about the handsome old grey town; in its lofty-ceiled, polished-floored rooms, rather bare; on its broad pavement, clean and trim and as little crowded as any conventional stage. Of the rest it must be understood that we are in the midst of what has been extolled as "the Bath manner" and that throughout, as was said of another, but world-wide known, Bath Comedy,
"Love gilds the scene, and woman guides the plot."
A. & E. C.
49 Sloane Gardens, S.W.,
April, 1900.
The Bath Comedy
SCENE I
"What? My sweet Lady Standish in tears!"
Mistress Kitty Bellairs poised her dainty person on one foot and cast a mocking, somewhat contemptuous, yet good-humoured glance at the slim length of sobbing womanhood prone on the gilt-legged, satin-cushioned sofa.
"Tears," said Mistress Kitty, twirling round on her heel to look at the set of her new sacque in the mirror and admire its delicate flowered folds, as they caught the shafts of spring sunshine that pierced into the long dim room from the narrow street. "Tears, my dear, unless you cry becomingly, which I would have you know not one in the thousand can, are a luxury every self-respecting woman ought to deny herself. Now I," said Mistress Kitty, and tweaked at a powdered curl and turned her head like a bird for a last glimpse at the mirror before sinking into an arm-chair and drawing closer to her afflicted friend, "have not shed a tear since I lost my first lover, and that is—I will not say how many years ago. I was a mightily precocious child! When I say a tear, mind you, 'tis a figure of speech. Far be it from me to deny the charm of a pearly drop—just one: enough to gather on the tip of the finger, enough just to suffuse the pathetic eye. Oh, that is not only permissible, 'tis to be cultivated. But such weeping as yours—sobs that shake you, tears that drench the handkerchief, redden the eyes, not to speak of the nose—fie! fie! it is clean against all reason. Come!" with a sudden gentle change of tone, putting her hand on the abased head, where fair curls luxuriated in all their native sunshine, "what is it all about?"